Location: Seattle, USA
Role: Freelance Brand & Product Designer
Team: Just Me ☺
Timeline: December 2025-February 2026
The Brief
Swizzle Ventures is a venture capital firm founded by Jessica Kamada in 2023 that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups focused on advancing women’s health and wealth across pivotal life stages. The firm’s name references the ‘Swizzle’, a foundational figure skating move made up of whimsical curves and pivots carved into the ice. In preparation for Swizzle’s second round of fundraising, I was entrusted with revamping the brand and website in order to attract new investors.
Challenges
The Wordmark (Primary Logo): While the original concept extended the ‘W’ in “Swizzle” into an elongated wave to reflect the swizzle motion, the client decided during the final stages of logo development to prioritize simplicity and legibility. This decision meant reverting back to a more traditional ‘W,’ emphasizing the distinctiveness of the name itself rather than relying on a more unique wordmark.
No Stock Photography: The client is completely anti-stock photography and had limited original imagery available so the website design relied heavily on patterns and illustrative elements.
Objectives
Shift Brand Perception: Elevate the level of polish to strengthen credibility and appeal to institutional investors.
Remain Unique: Preserve the brand's uniqueness to continue standing out amongst competitors and reinforce brand recognition.
Boost Engagement: Develop a more comprehensive visual identity to increase engagement and conversion across digital platforms.
The final brand guidelines feature an extended color palette, with tints and shades derived from the primary palette to provide greater flexibility and versatility across visual materials.
Original Brand Mark
Redesigned Brand Mark
Brand Pattern
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The Swizzle shape is the key design element, or brand motif, that unifies the entire Swizzle Ventures visual identity system. Designed as an elongated version of the ‘W’ from the primary logo, the Swizzle can be used on its own or as a pattern, and works across a number of different configurations. It is playful, flexible, scalable and available in all tints and shades from the brand color palette.
